Escaping Pink and Princesses

I have an adorable 11 1/2 month old baby girl.  Because she is a girl that must mean that everything she owns should be pink, right? NOOOOOO!!! I am so over pink already. I'm done with it.  I never thought a color would bother me so much. Pink has really gotten on my nerves.

I'm sure when I was a little girl that I loved pink. Of course, I don't remember that time. The first favorite color that I had, that I remember, was blue.  I guess by the age of 8 I was already tired of pink.

Pink wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't so present in anything you try to buy a baby girl. The vast majority of toys out there being marketed to girls are PINK. For some toys, it is hard to find a gender neutral color. I notice that boys have a larger selection of colors and styles. They aren't limited to blue in the same ways that girls are to pink.  Why is that?  

This is not to say that I hate pink. I like the color, but in small, tasteful doses. Instead what you end up with is a room full of Pepto-Bismal---clothes, toys, decorations saturated with pink.  Silly me, I would like my daughter to enjoy a wide range of colors and not be forced into believing that pink is the way to go, just because she is a girl.

Not only am I sick of pink, I can't stand the Disney princesses. She isn't into them, yet, but Disney is sure doing a job trying to market them to her already.  Of course, the Disney princesses are always decorated with a pink background, which makes them doubly bad.  I just hope this trend dies off a bit before my daughter is old enough to catch onto the strange mania that has most little girls dreaming of being Belle, Cinderella or Aurora.  I remember wanting to be a princess when I was little, but my dreams weren't so specific.  Hopefully, Ginny's imagination will go beyond these Disney constructs being handed to her and every other little girl out there.  Hopefully.

Until then, I will deal with some pink, particularly those that are gifts, and try to get as much for her as I can that isn't pink and doesn't have a princess on it.

The Kindness of Strangers

In an earlier post, I mentioned how Ginny seems to draw people to her. This characteristic has not changed. She grabs a lot of attention still.  When we go to the grocery store, I spend half my time thanking people for the compliments they give Ginny. If I need to pick up prescriptions, there are two young ladies who work the counter who will stop what they are doing to visit with her. We even have a nurse who loves and adores Ginny so much that she will come by to visit her, ever briefly, even if she is tending to other patients. (She has readily agreed to babysit if we need her so this has worked out nicely.)

When I wrote about this before, I mentioned that a woman came up to us after Mass one Saturday evening and said she wanted to make an afghan for Ginny. We thanked her, but hadn't seen her since.  Because of Chris's work schedule we are not consistent with the times we go to Mass. If he has the weekend off (or at least Sunday) we go to Mass on Sunday morning. When he does work on the weekend, we go to the Cathedral (not our parish) for Mass on Sunday since it is a later Mass.  (Technically we could go on Saturday at our local parish, but I'm not a fan so....) It is only when Chris is on overnight shifts that we go to Mass on Saturday evenings.

Well, this past Saturday, the kind woman approached us with a bag in hand to give us the afghan she made. She explained that she had been looking for us. We felt bad because it had been a month since we had been at a Saturday Mass and that time we were in the cry room. We told her that Chris's work schedule was such that we didn't go to the same Mass times regularly.  She seemed to understand.

Later, we opened the bag and looked at the afghan! It is quite beautiful! I still can't believe that a stranger would approach us and do something so wonderful for Ginny. What a blessed gift!

An Aversion to Grass

Yesterday was a beautiful day outside. Apparently Mother Nature is confused and thinks that summer is here instead of spring. The temperature got up close to 80 degrees. Normally I would grumble about this, as I love my 4 seasons, and our winter has been non-existent this year. However, it was such a pretty day that it merited taking Ginny outside to play in the grass.

Now, Ginny did go outside on Sunday, but it was cooler and she was in long pants, a top, and her Nike's.  I missed most of this as I was taking a nap. When I did get up I went out with her and placed her on the grass, only to notice Ginny was not thrilled with this latest development. She wanted off the grass and couldn't quite figure out how to do so.  I thought her Nike's might be throwing her off as she normally doesn't wear shoes, especially not while crawling.

It was so nice and warm yesterday that Ginny didn't need to have layers on and was able to go barefoot.  So, Chris and I set up a blanket in the backyard to put Ginny on so she could enjoy the outdoors.

Ginny loves having a breeze blow on her face. She loved the sunshine. I decided that it was time to try out the grass again. So, I placed her on the grass and watched.  Her face said it all. She didn't like the grass. She wanted off the grass, but she wasn't quite sure how to get off of it. It took her a bit to figure out she could crawl.  It was very amusing!

The rest of this week it is supposed to be warm, even getting up to 80 on Wednesday.  I'm quite sure we will spend more time outside with Ginny letting her explore the world outside. Well, only if she is willing to get off the blanket.